By Cyprian Fernandes Title: Goans - What Crisis Of Identity? Source: Goan Voice UK newsletter, 12 June 2011 at www.goanvoice.org.uk
[For a photograph and brief bio of the new Goan Voice UK columnist, check the website]. Full text: Having been born and raised in Kenya, a little before the baby-boomers, I am often baffled when Goans in Kenya, both pre and post-independence, are supposed to have suffered a crisis of identity. There was never any doubt: a Goan is a Goan. That is non-negotiable. Goans know their ethnic identity which probably comes more easily than their national identity: such as British, Australian, German, US, Malaysian, Thai, Kiwi, Kenyan, etc. The passport cannot unGoan a Goan. This dual identity is part of the Goan DNA and in the case of the East African Goans it was a gene that was often acutely prejudicial: as in I am a Goan, not an African, Muslim, Hindu (Indian), Punjabi (Sikh) etc. This prejudice was also religion based, Goans being next to godliness through their near fanaticism of Roman Catholicism. Even amongst the Goans there is a separation by degrees of prejudice. The Goans will probably go down in history as one of the peoples who fell in love with their colonisers: Vasco Da Gama and his successors. Having been taught by the British to think they were a separate because they were a class above the rest of the non-whites, Goans were in awe of the imperialists. It was never their fault. This gene of prejudice, which is still alive today, especially in Goa and the rest of India, goes back several hundred years: rich man, poor man, the caste, the untouchables, fair man, dark man, holy man, and infidel. In Goa, the added dimension of Bardez vs. Salcette, I am Portuguese because I have some Portuguese blood in my ancestry or because I speak Portuguese, took Goan prejudice to new heights. Goans, like other South Asians, would pack their daughters off to India rather than suffer the shame and disgrace of inter-marriage with another South Asian. Marriage to African was unthinkable. Fortunately, the children of baby-boomers have eradicated that prejudice. The world over Goans marry blacks without blinking their Goan eyelids. But the DNA still lurks among the parents, but "what can you say, what can you do, you can't tell them anything." When considering the question of a Goan identity, this gene of prejudice looms large. Goans abroad swear that the umbilical cord still ties them to their mother country. To newer generations, Goa is that little place on the West Coast of India. When a Goan asks a white Aussie, where do you come from, he will answer Australia. When a Goan asks another Goan the same question, he or she will say, Aldona, Majorda, Benaulim etc. If you want to know the nationality of a Goan, you have to ask: What country do you live in? Similarly in those early days before and after independence in Kenya, a Goan was a Goan. He was not British, Portuguese, Kenyan or anything else. There was no identity crisis. Briton, Portugal, India, Africa have all disowned the Goan at one time or another. Kenyan Independence put an end to the privileged position Goans enjoyed with the British. Bundled as Indians, they had to become Kenya citizens or leave. Thus by early 1962, Goans who had Portuguese passports were already heading for Lisbon. Those that did not, were returning to Goa, leaving some of their children behind, especially those in good jobs. The big crunch came in 1967: >From midnight November 30, anyone who was not a Kenya citizen, even if he or she was born in Kenya, would need an "entry certificate" to stay in Kenya and a "work permit" to work. By 1967, fearing the threat of deportation, 1000 Asians a month were arriving in England. In March, 1968, the Labour Government delivered the final insult (Goans felt particularly let down) by virtually cancelling the British Passport: holders were required an entry voucher to enter Britain. So they were told that they were not British, not Kenyan, Ugandan, Tanzanian (even if they were born in these African countries) and all they had to fall back on was their ethnicity. Stripped of everything else, they had four choices of nationality: British, Indian, Portuguese, Kenya but only one choice of ethnicity. Hence I am a Goan. This is the sanctuary that no living soul can take away from the Goan and it is only in Goa that a Goan can walk a truly free person. See, there is no crisis of identity: I am a Kenyan, British, Australian Goan of Indian origin. PS: My children are Aussies but they know they are of Goan stock. Comments to Cyprian Fernandes: [email protected]
